Get Up
by bisexualcharliedavis
Summary: And the only solution was to stand and fight.


A/N: Lets get back on the violence train beep beep! I tried a bit of an experimental thing this time around, so let me know what you think I guess : -) Warnings: Mild gore, lots of blood, lots of violence.

Get up.

Every nerve screams. Ever muscle aches and he would swear he couldn't move. All he can smell is blood, and his nose is certainly broken. His ribs are creaking. He can hardly see. Air tastes thick, and bloody. Like phlegm.

Get up.

Another blow to the ribcage, and he doesn't have it in him to fight back anymore, how can he? He barely has it in him to scream and he knows that he should be doing that. Where was Bill? Hadn't Bill been here with him? Or was it the Doc? Maybe it was Lawson. His memories are hazy with concussion, all the face have blurred into one amalgamated monstrosity that beckons him with an outstretched hand.

Get up.

His lower back. It's all he can do to try and fold in, defend the soft bits like his stomach, and his guts. Things he didn't want ruptured, but he fears it's too late for that now. He's never seen someone be beaten to death before in the mortuary. He hopes Doctor Harvey will have a funny quip for whoever she's conducting his autopsy with. He hopes that her hands don't shake and that Blake doesn't have to be there and see him like this.

Get up, please

Once he's dead, he hopes that they don't have a large funeral. He imagines his mother will be there, and she will cry. He hopes Blake will put an arm around her when they look at him, in his coffin, face fixed still with wax and tell her that he was loved and that he was so brave. That she should be proud of him. He hopes Frank will tell his brothers about being a police officer, and he hopes those brothers will go follow their hearts, rather then duty like he had. He hopes that there will be so many people there that Rose covers it for the paper. He hopes she takes pictures of mourners and that she will wear her fringe down. He hopes that Mattie will write a letter from London telling everyone how sorry she is that she can't come and how sorry she is for their loss.

Get up

He spits blood and he can imagine it staining his teeth. If there was anything left the taste might have made him vomit. There's nothing left but bile that sticks in his throat and all it tastes of is putrid sadness. Without wanting too, his hands reach out, straining to some unreachable goal, perhaps trying to escape. Perhaps not. It doesn't matter. They crunch when they break.

Get up

Nothing, there's nothing left. He can't even force his body to curl in on itself in protection. He has no protection of himself, there's nothing, just a nothingness that threatens to leave him here forever. He can't even yell any more, his voice is done. It's gone. All he can get out are soft All he can do is lie still, and wait for it to be over. That's all there is.

Get up

Once he's gone, will they hurt whoever was with him? The amalgamated face is watching him again when he closes his eyes. He doesn't want whatever friend was there to be hurt as well, that seems unfair. It seems too much. Not only will they kill him, but take his friend also. He tries to pulls his arms towards him, to protect his face from any more pain but it doesn't work.

Get up, please Charlie!

He can't die. It's a simple thought, but one that stings. He can't die here. He has to protect whoever is yelling at him, in such a way he can hardly hear it over his thudding heart. He can't die, it's not his time yet. The doctor will have to clear out his things, Jean will have to throw his supper into the bin because no one wants to eat a dead man's food. Someone will need to clear his desk at the station. Now is not the time to die, he thinks, and he shuts his eyes, blocking out the yelling and sound of boot on flesh

He went inside himself and summoned his last strength. His very last drops of energy because as is always the case with Charlie Davis he was able to dig to the very deepest recesses of his recesses and produce energy. It's not much, but it's enough to get him to his knees.

Charlie!

He threw himself forward, into his attackers legs and they fell. Charlie managed to get to his feet, and put his hands together, throwing them at the man to his left, knocking him to the ground. He screamed so long and so loud. The third man tries to approach from the side but Charlie responds by barreling forwards wounded bull style. He falls on his ass. He scrabbles for the cricket bat, and brandishing it, he made short work of number one.

Turning to the second one, he loses his footing and falls to the blood soaked ground. He loses his grip on the weapon. He calls out. The second man makes a dive for it, but Charlie manages to kick it away from him. They tussle on the floor, and he hits the back of Charlie's skull on the ground so many times he thought that surely it must break. But it doesn't, at least as far as he knows. He pulls up on of his legs between them, and tries to muster up the strength to deliver a kick. The man screams out, and falls away from him, hands between his legs while the second man tries to grab a hold of him. Charlie rolls out of the way, and tries to crawl towards the bat.

One of the men behind him grabbed him by the legs and pulled him back, causing him to fall straight onto his ribcage. He screams out in agony, and every breath suddenly feels like a white wall of pain washing over him, over and over and over. Almost like when he broke his ribs.

Charlie…

The man has struggled to his knees now, and the one holding him turns him over roughly. He tries to protect his head but is unable. He's right back where he started, he's going to die and there's nothing he can do about it. Someone swings at him and he tries to fight back, to reach out, but he can't. He doesn't have anything left. Nothing. He's empty. All he wants to do is fall into the beautiful silence that would be death.

Oh God. Please. Oh God.

He closes his eyes, and tries to find that inner peace that people have spoken of. That place away from the world empty and quiet and peaceful. He longs for that peace now. He hurts so much. All the pain has melded into one. When will it feel numb? Dear lord he wants to feel numb. He wants that peace. That silence. He wants it so bad.

Oh God.

He almost doesn't care. But he does. He doesn't want there to be an empty spot at the table. He doesn't want his brothers to lose the closest thing they ever truly had to a dad. He doesn't want Bill Hobart to clean out his desk. He doesn't want his mother to suffer through any more loss. He has to get up. He has to get up. He has to get up.

After a deep agonizing breath, he pulls in his legs and kicks out, knocking the man down. He manages to roll away, and drag himself to his knees and then crawl a few steps, clamber to his feet and run.

It's short lived. It hurts so bad. He eventually finds another room to hide in, and upon entering, looks for a hiding spot, desperate to get away. Feet appear, two sets, both looking for him, but he's well hidden. Well hidden. He just needs to wait a few more seconds…

He throws his good arm out from under the cupboard, and grabs the mans ankle, pulling as hard as he could. He falls. The other is no where to be seen, they must have split up. Charlie emerges from his hiding place in time to throw his weight onto the other man. They tussle over his gun, and he screams for help. Charlie smashes him in the head with the butt over and over again until he stops. His good hand is coated in blood. His whole body is. He doesn't know if he's killed this man or not. He doesn't care either. The second man blunders in, waving the bat, before noticing Charlie had the gun. Charlie spat blood onto the ground.

Get on your knees hand's behind your head.

Go to Hell.

The man refuses, and rushes at him. Charlie held up the gun, and pulled the trigger one, two three four five times until it stops. There are no bullets left. He hit the man's neck on his first shot. He tumbles to the ground lifeless. Charlie stumbled to his feet, and made his way to the room he'd been in, looking for the source of the voice from before. He doesn't know what one of his friends it is, he can't see right, but they seem relieved to see him. Once they're untied he lies down on the floor, and lets himself fall unconscious.

…

Will he be alright?

I can't say.

The doctor fussed in his seat slightly, and turned to look at Charlie's distraught mother. The boy had been out for almost a week by now, surely. He looks bad. The bruises had all come up dark purple, they'd had to shave his head in an effort to examine his cracked skull, his hand was wrapped up tighter than a hand rolled ciggrette. He looked like someone who had been in a car accident, if Lucien had to take a guess as his aliments, without knowing the whole story.

And you did all you could?

Everything. I swear. It's up to him now.

Lucien will never forget the scene of Matthew Lawson, bad leg and all, covered in blood and bruises carrying Charlie into the hospital. He looked like a vengeful God in the light, his hair astray, blood from both himself and Charlie on his face. When he was being rushed off, Charlie had said that he looked like an angel, and that he must be dead. Lucien had to pretend that it hadn't broken his heart.

He'll make it.

Matthew sounds confident. The man is not meant to be here, he should be in his own room, but he's refused to so much as stand from his chair. He's had a firm grip on Charlie's hand ever since he was brought out of surgery and Lucien? Lucien doesn't blame him. Charlie's mother seems to understand it as well. Why Matthew can't stand for them to be apart.

He's a strong boy.

His mother agrees with Matthew, as she has with most every statement since she arrived, making the trip to see her son as soon as she could find someone to care for her four other children.

Just like his father.

Matthew has no response for the woman, just tightens his hold on Charlie's hand, and leans forward so his head is resting on the table. His mother doesn't question it. No one does. They let him rest, and speak with hushed voices.

And the people who did this?

There was three of them. Charlie killed two. The third will likely go on trial when Charlie is well enough to testify.

Will he be charged with anything?

No, I don't think so. He acted out of self defense.

She nods, and the two of them look to gaze on his bruised face, while Matthew took in the smell of the sheets he lay on.


End file.
